Turned out, instead of ruining his life, I’d ruined mine.
And I honestly didn’t know how to fucking fix it.
Chapter Seven
IT WAS HIM.
It has to be…
I sat dazed on the beach, looking out to sea, clutching a diamond that had been gifted for the use of my body. A diamond that Sully had bought me…or a guest? Was this a secret admittance to how he felt, or a stone weeping in lust from another?
Unlike blindfolds and other methods to hide true identity, Sully’s Euphoria successfully hid everything: eye colour, voice, height, scent, and features.
All I had were instincts and guesses.
And those faltered in the face of Sully’s protestation.
Why did I think I knew better than a well-rehearsed, perfectly delivered hallucination? How did I think I would recognise Sully behind the smoke and mirrors and scientific tricks he used?
I wanted to remain confident in my accusation. To cling to the hope that he hadn’t been able to rent me because that meant his lies would eventually lose.
But I honestly didn’t know anymore.
The diamond rested heavily in my hand as I stared at a perfect vista, watching as the sun set on another painful day, glowing with so many things I never thought I would do.
I now paid the price of those decisions.
Everything I’d done, every action I’d taken, every mistake I’d chased, and hope I’d embraced, I did because of one thing.
Him.
I’d cheated on Scott.
I’d turned my back on my old existence for the mere whisper of a new one.
I’d stolen a drug and used it against the very man who created it.
I willingly, happily gave my body to be used by him.
I screwed up everything, but I would do it all over again because Sully had admitted something. Something that confused the hell out of me as well as corrupted me.
“I asked for them to find you. I sent an intimate description of someone who isn’t real. But then they found you. You. Were. Real. You were real enough for them to deliver you to me, and I fucking bought you, even knowing it was the biggest mistake of my fucking life.”
What did he mean by that? That any girl who looked like me would’ve made him feel this way? That what we felt wasn’t special…just misplaced by him lusting after a figment of his imagination?
I didn’t know if I found that stupidly romantic or hopelessly sad. Why was he so determined to lie to himself?
I wasn’t crazy.
When I’d dragged him from the bottom of the waterfall and he’d slipped inside me in the shallows, there had been love in his eyes.
I know there was.
Love and awe and the total disbelief that we’d found each other.
But if he could feel that—if he could admit in that moment that this, us, was unique…then why did he shout and kick me from his room? Why did he throw a shirt in my direction, march me out his door, and leave me to find my way back through the meandering pathways to my villa.
Why hadn’t he visited?
I sighed, pulling my knees up and resting my chin on them. It’d been twelve hours since I’d woken to Sully’s fury. In the beginning, I thought he raged at himself. The way he looked at the wounds he’d given me spoke of crippling self-loathing. But then that temper had switched. He’d swallowed back the softness that’d bloomed between us and denied everything, every look, every touch, every connection…including the fact that it was him in Euphoria that first time.
Is he a liar?
Or am I the most stupid, starry-eyed girl in history?
The quick quiver of wings announced Skittle’s arrival just before she came to a graceful perch on my toes. Instantly, my stomach stopped churning in worry. Her presence acted as a sedative to the calamity in my head and heart. “Hey, little bird. Where have you been?” I reached out to tickle under her chin. “Did you see us yesterday? See our unhinged display on the path?”
She squeaked and fluffed her wings.
“I take that as a no.” I smiled. “Hopefully.”
Had anyone seen?
Was it luck that we’d been alone, or had Cal managed to do what Sully asked and shepherded everyone to their villas? I was glad we hadn’t been watched, not that it would’ve mattered with the state Sully was in.
The state I put him in.
Skittles chirped and angled her head for me to scratch deeper. Her black eyes closed in pure bliss.
I sighed again, allowing a simpler connection between bird and human to take precedence over the complicated one I shared with a monster.
But then Cal’s snippy comments returned.
“You broke his precious trust. You proved that no one can be trusted. Especially you.”
I groaned under my breath as another lance pierced my heart.
What Cal had told me last night had haunted my sleep. He spoke of trust as if it was the most fundamental rule to life. He acted as if Sully had lost the ability to feel such faith. And if that was true, then no matter how much daydreaming I did, no matter how much plotting to make him concede, no matter how primitive and explosive our sex had been, it wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference.